Royal Borough has a new mayor

Councillor Christopher Buckmaster has been elected to serve as the Mayor of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea for 2012/13.

This is the second time Cllr Buckmaster has been Mayor - his first mayoralty was in 2003/2004. And he is only the second Councillor to be elected for a second term as Mayor, the other being the late Councillor Miss Elizabeth M Christmas MBE.

Following his election Cllr Buckmaster said: “It is a very great honour to have been elected as Mayor for a second time and particularly in this Diamond Jubilee and Olympic Year. I am very much looking forward to building on the experience of my first mayoralty and to representing the Royal Borough.”

Born in Liverpool in October 1938, Christopher Buckmaster read Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Oxford, where he was Chairman of the University Conservative Association.  He subsequently went into business and travelled widely. He has lived and worked in the Caribbean, North America, Australia and New Zealand and also in Africa.

For three years he was a member of the London Regional Board of the Confederation of British Industry. He has always taken an interest in voluntary organisations having served on the management committees of a number of them, including Open Age.  He was Chairman of the Trustees of Kensington and Chelsea People First, an organisation seeking to develop self-advocacy amongst adults with learning difficulties.

He was elected to the Council in May 1994 and represents Campden Ward. At various times he has served on social services, housing and education committees, as well as being a director of the Tenant Management Organisation. He was Cabinet Member for Education, Libraries and Arts from 2001 to 2003 and was for ten years a governor of Holland Park School.  He was Deputy Mayor of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (2002/2003). Prior to being Mayor he was Chairman of Licensing and immediately before that Chairman of the pan-London Health Committee, which involved chairing the scrutiny committee of all London boroughs on trauma and strokes.

Cllr Buckmaster has appointed Cllr Victoria Borwick as the Deputy Mayor; Anne Hobson (who worked tirelessly in support of the Mayor's Charity during his first Mayoral year) as his Mayoress and the Rev'd. Robert Thompson, lead chaplain to the Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Trust - since 2009 - and Associate Priest at St George's Church, Campden Hill, as his chaplain.

Cllr Buckmaster's charity is the Brain Tumour Research Campaign. Brain tumours are the largest single cause of cancer deaths for people under 40 and have never had the high profile attained by other cancer charities.